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Notes -
Every time I see arguments speaking for Euthanasia, I recall reading the comic Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis.
The first story in said comic series involves a gonzo journalist by the name of Spider Jerusalem in the far future hunting for a story, stumbling across a break-away group being lead by an old companion of his. Said group has taken to utilizing radical body-mods to effectively partially transform themselves into half-human, half-alien hybrids. They're effectively throwing a political hissyfit/riot to get recognized as some sort of special group by the City, so they can acquire benefits and whatnot. Of cource, there's the slight issue that said radical body-modding tech they're utilizing was a failure from the start, hence the hybrid part, as it should have been a perfect transformation, but whatever...
Anyways, the story ends with Spider effectively shaming everyone into calming down and not bashing all the hybrids brains out on the sidewalk, and ends writing a column about the entire circumstance.
One line in said column always stuck out at me, roughly paraphrased from memory, as I lack said comic in front of me to quote verbatim. 'If we were a civilized society, we'd give these damaged people a playground sandbox, a pat on the head, and let them do their own thing in peace'.
If we were a civilized society.
Civilized.
That word, I've always felt, did alot of heavy lifting. Loading bearing, you could call it. If we were civilized. If we lived in a society where a sizable chunk of people that wouldn't take advantage of such a fail-state, that wouldn't abuse the system, that wouldn't twist it for their own ends. If we were mature. Adult. Civilized. If things were only civilized, we could do so many things.
I'm a big believer in personal responsibility. I feel that if people want to do something, that doesn't harm others, they should at least have that option. Suicide included. If you want to check out, well, I personally don't agree with it, and it's not my thing personally, but I can at least understand why some people would want to do so. My odd life has put me in close contact with a wide spread of people, including some older individuals that refuse to change their behavior and have basically decided that if they're going to go out, they're going to go out living life on their terms.
However.
I'll be the first person to play the devil's advocate and note we don't live in a perfect world, that perverse incentives are the quiet ruler that dictates more than I wish, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. While personal responsibility and choices is one thing, it's entirely another to give authority to the state.
Do I trust individuals to make good, well-informed decisions that have the best outcome for their future? No. But the thing about believing in personal responsibility is that this also includes the fail state to fuck up in a cataclysmic fashion.
Do I want to give that sort of power to the State and Authority as a whole? Fuck no. I could go off on a long rant here about how I feel some laws and societal allowances have a gargantuan knock-on effect on societal development as a whole in a very bad way, but I won't belabor the point, and it would be distracting, anyways.
Am I being cruel, here? Evil, one could argue? Dooming people whom suffer, physically and mentally, in a state of agony that last as long as they live? Perhaps. Is this fair? I don't know. I wish we had better options. I honestly, really do.
If we were just civilized...
But what I do know is that maybe, just maybe, we want to keep that genie in the bottle for a very good reason.
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